BIRDS AND INSECTS 165 



must exercise an important control over the insect 

 pests that destroy our corn and pastures, and that 

 if this control is removed some other means must be 

 found to check the increase of the wire-worms, leather- 

 jackets, and other injurious insects. 



Perhaps some day such other means will be found, 

 but at present, for want of accurate scientific know- 

 ledge, we are practically helpless. The evidence con- 

 cerning the food of the wood-pigeons has not yet 

 been collected in a careful and systematic manner, 

 but there can be little doubt that the popular opinion 

 that this bird is almost entirely destructive is justified, 

 and that organized efforts should be made to reduce 

 its numbers. 



The sparrow is also a bird that, during the greater 

 part of the year, takes a heavy toll of human food in 

 the agricultural districts, and is unfortunately so 

 plentiful that the total amount of grain it devours per 

 annum is a serious loss to the country. It is true 

 that during the nesting season it carries many cater- 

 pillars and other larval and adult insects to its young, 1 

 but, for all that, systematic efforts should be made 

 throughout the country to reduce its numbers. But 

 for many reasons, moral as well as practical, the 

 practice of employing children to destroy sparrows 

 should be most sternly condemned. I will not discuss 

 here the moral reasons, but indiscriminate awards 

 of money offered to children for sparrows and the 

 eggs of sparrows have led in many cases to wholesale 

 destruction of such valuable birds as the hedge- 

 sparrow, the robin, and the fly-catcher. 



It may seem to many people that our efforts to con- 

 trol the ravages of insect pests in this country have 

 not been very successful. Notwithstanding the 

 sheaves of pamphlets issued by the Board of Agri- 



1 W. E. Collinge, Journal Board of Agriculture, XXI, 1914. 



